OSM maps can be for any area, and applications do provide search, including POI search and routing.
Then the question is what does one do with all the extra space in this portable world device? Wikipedia information? Languages? Fun times.
That even includes a bunch of POI data from wikipedia.
On the other hand, as a for instance, that total includes more data for Germany than for Africa.
I guess some map providers might be pulling in other data sources, but in a lot of areas, OSM data doesn't have many POIs to find.
(the minimal effort way to improve this is to drop an anonymous note on the map, using the not very prominent button at the bottom of the right panel: https://www.openstreetmap.org/ )
I ask because I've been using Google Maps to travel and those features have been invaluable. An offline map is usually missing those features. The schedules are not up to date and searching by context requires data not usually part of map data.
Actually, where I live it's OSM which has excellent bike paths and Google Maps which hasn't (posted an example above).
And yes, of course it has bus routes and can route using car mode, walking, bike, public transit. Using applications like Osmand you can do much more complex queries than Google Maps, optimize by time, by length, prefer means of transportation X, etc.
Of course every offline app potentially has the stale data problem, but for me, it's actually OSM with the better data.
YMMV.
In many parts of the world, basic mapping data is incomplete, and one tool will have fresher data than the other for cherry picked examles. In another 10 years, we can imagine that mapping will all be relatively similar, and integration is what we'll compare against.
Unreasonable, yes, I know - but something worth sharing I thought, since if you get into the realm of "transportation data" it's kinda gotta be all-or-nothing, I think.
> Does it have bus routes, train schedules?
It has the routes, but no it does not have train schedules. Why? Because OpenStreetMap is just a basic map. It is not supposed to have such information. Someone has to write an app that uses the OSM data and then add the schedules.
For example: http://fahrinfo.vbb.de/bin/help.exe/dn?L=vs_mobilitymap&tpl=... (enable checkboxes on the right) - OSM Map Data combined with data from the transport assoziation
Btw. I guess you are from the US? Because good luck finding those schedules in Google Maps outside the US. Germany for example only has trains. No Buse and Tram data.
This might be of interest to you http://openmtbmap.org/
Yep. It even has a cycle specific map view (go to openstreetmap.org, and select Cycle Map from the Layers on the right hand side).
Bus & train scheduled, not so much, since companies don't release that that often.
That's why I love open source or hackable products. You don't need to whining to a shitty support forum to grind a kpi driven product manager to make empty promises.
Due to the offline deficiencies, the terrible user experience regression from Maps 6.x->7.x, etc, I find myself using Google Maps less and less to the point where I'm not even sure my next phone will be Android based (until recently Google Maps/Nav was the killer app for Android for me, now I barely enjoy using that app at all).
This is good enough to use as a paper map (a zoomable paper map, with GPS and starred locations). HOWEVER, there are some huge shortcomings: No offline search, no offline navigation, and in certain regions, it's not available. I'm not sure exactly what countries are off-limits, but since I'm also backpacking through SE asia, I can tell you now that all of Singapore and Vietnam are downloadable, but at least some parts of Thailand and Indonesia are blocked. While this feature is incredibly useful, it's limitations are making the switch to OSM tempting.
[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ulmon.andr...